With the publication of this blog post, I can gladly announce the transfer of the main website from our previous antiquated infrastructure to our new systems. Hopefully, you should be noticing several speed increases when interacting with the site, and I hope that as we continue to tweak and optimize the new system that further seconds can be shaved off of the website loading time, resulting in a far more user-friendly experience. This new infrastructure looks to save the party over one thousand pounds a year and this means we will be able to continue putting more money into campaigning in order to make a difference in our political sphere.

A whistleblower exposed a significant conflict of interest at the heart of the government's controversial HS2 project which led to the withdrawal of American firm CH2M from the contract, City AM reported yesterday.

One of the seven guiding principles on which the policies and actions of the Pirate Party are based states… All are equal under the law. We all have a say in the structure and process of governance and the right to know what is done on our behalf.

Personally, and as Nominations Officer for the party, this is the core principle that means most to me. Equality and access to justice are fundamental rights, and that is enshrined in Article 7 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But sad to say we do not live in an equal society in this country. Every day people are discriminated against on grounds of sex, race, sexual identity, and political or religious beliefs. While such behaviour might be illegal, it is still widely practiced and is ingrained in some organisations. What is more, the Press actively encourages sexist, homophobic, and religious intolerance with provocative headlines, photos, and articles.

The Pirate Party stands for justice and equality. We believe that a person's beliefs, preferences, and physical attributes should have no bearing on how they are treated or what opportunities they have access to.

The media are full of proposals for electoral pacts and ideas for tactical voting. These suggestions are based around keeping one party or another out of government, or making sure that a particular person is not returned to Westminster.

But where does this leave a minority party? Should it encourage its supporters to vote for candidates from other parties and maybe for different parties in different constituencies?

And what should voters do in our first past the post system where their first choice from one of the smaller parties is unlikely to get elected? Should they vote for the person they support or should they consider that a wasted vote?

I am personally very frustrated and disappointed by negative voting. At the previous election my MP said to me words equivalent to, "Vote for me because at least I'm not one of them." This is not exactly a resounding reason to do anything.

The Pirate Party was founded on a set of core principles, with a goal of challenging conventional politics and protecting the people's rights.

The party has come an incredibly long way since its start in 2009, relying solely on the help of the community that believes this is the way forward, and unlike many other minor parties, we are still growing stronger.

Along with crowdsourcing its policies, the party has relied on small-scale donations, in stark contrast to larger parties that have accepted money from questionable sources and wealthy benefactors.

Open Source

This site was built and is provided using open source software. It wouldn't be here without the work of millions of volunteers who contribute to these projects, xwolf, whose theme we modified, and our IT team who build and manage our systems. We use GNU/Linux, Debian, Nginx, Drupal and many other open source tools to do what we do. We provide HTTPS using Let's Encrypt.